Recently I delved into an adjacent blogospheric realm to that of teaching; translating …..and this is what inspired me to write this post.
The essence of my argument in this post is to highlight the deficiency of the traditional four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) as insufficient and as outdated as an iphone 3GS.
My opinion is that we have traditionally ignored/overlooked at least two other essential skills in language acquisition. The first one is that of pragmatic awareness in the L2. Often in another language it’s not a case of what you say, it’s how you say it. I believe that even some minimal preparation in the conventions of speech acts and politeness principles in the target language will go a long way. I have encountered this obstacle myself, often when trying to communicate in another language I do that terribly English thing of being incredibly indirect to convey politeness. However, when this strategy is used in other languages you either end up sounding ridiculous, or at best, foreign.
Eslami-Rasekh (2005) has observed that the grammatical development of second language learners does not automatically correspond to enhanced pragmatic competence and that the “reponsibility for teaching pragmatic aspects of language use falls on teachers”. Rasekh also reveals that teachers are hindered by a lack of an availability of materials and refers to other studies which have shown that the pragmatic competence on NS and even proficient speakers of a language are vastly different. The article is definitely worth a read, and there are a bunch of interesting suggestions of how to integrate pragmatics into your lessons.
To be fair, it could be argued that the functional language teaching approach addresses this issue, as this often teaches formulaic speech acts and culturally expected responses. However, I think this is rather hit-and-miss and there is a lack of awareness-raising that you are actually dealing with pragmatics that could enhance such teaching. Also, I feel that the functional approach is becoming somewhat “lukewarm” with the ELT community…maybe that’s just me. Which is a shame, because it is often the only remotely pragmatic exposure some students get.
The English Result series of books attempts to include pragmatic awareness and does a fair job, if not consistent. In the blurb they speak of “a fifth skill” and call it “Interaction”, which I quite like, it’s quaint, it’s catchy and it sounds like it could slot right in next to its comrades…the veterans Reading, Writing, Speaking & Listening.
So I can’t really claim to be discovering something new here, darn it, I’ll pip Jeremy Harmer from his pedestal yet!
Now, the second skill which is (in my opinion) practically forgotten, is THINKING in the target language. I think there is an assumption by language teachers that thinking in the language is something which will come with proficiency at some vague distant point in the future and is often not necessary for the purposes of passing exams, tests etc.
In addition, when the topic of thinking does raise its ugly unpopular zit-covered head it is usually misunderstood as critical thinking, lateral thinking or any other type of thinking other than thinking directly in the L2.
Problem solving tasks abound, but in reality, our students are just solving the problem in their L1 and translating the results. It’s the very epitome of “missing the point”.
The problem is with L2 use and a lack of importance on thinking in the target language is that we are prompting our students to translate everything. I think we, as teachers, need to look at ourselves critically and ask ourselves if we are churning out alumni who are linguists, or translators.
The trouble is with translation is that it is very seductive. We all rely on it for support, it’s a crutch and sometimes it can be quite the reliable friend, especially if you are fortunate to have a close L1 – L2 relationship where the interference is mostly positive. But that is the exception, not the rule. More often than not, translation turns out to be that bitchy back-stabbing “frenemy” who uses every opportunity to undermine and humiliate you.
It’s for this reason that I’m not sure we do students any favours by perpetuating the reliance on translation. Again as with pragmatics, I think there is a critically woefully inadequate supply of support for teachers which certainly does nothing to help the situation evolve.
Now, I hear you ask, what’s the title all about, Madonna what? Okay, well I found a real gem which serves as a cautionary tale to all teachers out there who think that pragmatics and translation/thinking are no big deal.
The following is what happens when we fail to recognise their importance and allow our students to be little Google translators:
The situation is this, Madonna was in Budapest filming for Evita. La Diva herself finally gave an interview to a periodical called “Blikk”. Now, the questions were originally in Hungarian, so they were translated into English for her. Her replies were then translated into Hungarian for the article. At some point USA today wanted a copy of the interview so had Madonna’s comments retranslated back from Hungarian into English.
You could argue that so much was lost in translation, but also, that so much was gained….
Here is the transcript:
Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odour? You are the biggest fan of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies in response.
Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments for all to see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made.
Blikk: Madonna, let’s cut towards the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts on men who are tops?
Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman advances on her prey in a discotheque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a more normal attitude towards leather play-toys that also makes my day.
Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other people in your bed at the same time?
Madonna: No, no he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb using him. But as regards to those questions, enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by him, not a sex machine.
Blikk: May we talk about your other “baby”, your movie, then? Please do not be denying that the similarities between you and the real Evita are grounded in basis. Power, money, tasty food, Grammys – all these elements are afoot.
Madonna: What is up in the air with you? Evita never was winning a Grammy!
Blikk: Perhaps not. But as to your film, in trying to bring your reputation along a rocky road, can you make people forget the bad explosions of Whos’s That Girl? and Shanghai Surprise?
Madonna: I am a tip-top starlet. That is my job that I am paid to do.
Blikk: O.K., here’s a question from left space: What was your book Slut about?
Madonna: It was called Sex, my book.
Blikk: Not in Hungary. Here it was called Slut. How did it come to be publish? Were you lovemaking with a man-about-town printer? Do you prefer making suggestive literature to fast-selling CDs?
Madonna: There are different facets to my career highway. I am preferring only to become respected all over the map as a 100% artist.
Blikk: There is so much interest in you from this geographic region, so I must ask this final questions: How many Hungarian men have you dated in bed? Are they No. 1? How are they comparing to Argentine men, who are famous for being tip-top as well?
Madonna: Well, to avoid aggravating global tension, I would say it’s a tie [laughs]. No, no, I am serious now. See here, I am working like a canine all the way around the clock! I have been too busy even to try the goulash that makes your country one for the record books.
Blikk: Thank you for your candid chit-chat.
Madonna: No problem, friend who is a girl.
Here is a video of French & Saunders (comiediennes in the UK) reciting the dialogue:
French & Saunders Madonna interview
Now you may think that the real travesty here is in mere translation and not in language pedagogy and L2 use. I would disagree. I have heard things just as zany, if not worse than those above ,by language students in causal conversation trying to communicate. So there are parallels and lessons to be learned.
In my musings and wanderings through cyber-space looking for some literature on the subject, I did find one blog by a teacher who has some fascinating insights in how to teach thinking to your students, most of her suggestions are a variation on encouraging the students to engage in an internal monologue in the L2, or “talking to themselves” which I think is genius. In a way, it isn’t revolutionary, internalising language has been considered before but usually only for purposes of vocabulary learning of single lexical items or at most small chunks of language, it’s never really been considered as a stream of consciousness to enhance fluency and accuracy. For those interested you can find the blog post here:
http://englishwithjennifer.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/mind-games-how-do-we-get-students-to-think-in-english/
As long as you overlook the idiom in English that talking to yourself is the first sign of going crazy, you’re on to a winner! But in all seriousness, I haven’t heard a better suggestion to REALLY get the student to think in English.
The suggestions will however take some self-discipline on behalf of the language learner who would be required to resist the temptation to lapse back into their L1.
Another suggestion would be to get your students to try spontaneous speaking more, and by removing dictionaries and all the other paraphernalia to minimise the ability to translate. Of course however you have no way of ensuring internal thinking in English, and there may still be a great deal of spontaneous translation going on in the students’ head…..so not the best idea and another reason to resort to the internal monologue suggestions.
I think there are ways to make internal monologues interesting for students, we can raise awareness of the intricacies of internal monologue, for example, the way in English, we often use different modal verbs/constructions when giving ourselves “to-do” lists. (I must remember to phone my mom etc) and the way we reserve the function of complaining in the more aggressive sense (i.e. bitching) in our own heads…most the time.
I would be interested to hear any other suggestions people might have to promote thinking in the L2, as I think this is a muuuuch under-appreciated under-researched and under-everything area of language pedagogy.
In conclusion, I think we need to move towards a more 6-point paradigm in the future:
- Reading
- Writing
- Listening
- Speaking
- Thinking
- Interacting (pragmatics)
And the best part is, they all end in -ing so it makes a great soundbite too!
Thank you for reading, friends who are teachers and langauge learners.
References:
Elsami-Rasekh, Zohreh (2005) Raising the pragmatic awareness of language learners. ELT Journal. July 2005. 59(3). Pages 199-208.
“ (AnthonyGaughan)
but maybe a post for the future 